Browsing by Author "Nwannah, A. L."

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    Asymptomatic malaria among students of Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), Imo State, Nigeria
    (U. P., 2016-09-05) Mgbemena, I. C.; Ezea, C. O.; Ebe, T. E.; Nwachukwu, A. A.; Nwannah, A. L.
    The study aimed at determining the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria among students of Federal University of Technology Owerri, was carried out between July and September 2015. Blood samples of 160 students who lived both in school hostels and off campus residents were examined using Giemsa stained thick and thin films. A total of 40 students (25%) were infected with Plasmodium falciparium, with an overall asymptomatic case of 11.25%. Students of age 16-22 years had the highest prevalence of 28.28%, with an asymptomatic case of 46.43%, age group 23-29 years had a prevalence of 19.67%, with an asymptomatic case of 41.67%. It was observed that male students had the higher prevalence of 26.15%, with an asymptomatic case of 47.06%, while that of the females was 24.21%, with an asymptomatic case of 43.48%. On the relationship of malaria parasites and genotype, students with genotype ‘AA’ had an infection rate of 27.69%, with an asymptomatic case of 47.22% and students with genotype ‘AS’ had a prevalence of 13.33% with an asymptomatic case of 25%. The result shows that students with blood group O had highest prevalence of 60%, with an asymptomatic case of 61.1%. Blood group A has a prevalence of 27.5% with an asymptomatic case of 27.8%, and Blood group B has a prevalence of 12.5%, with an asymptomatic case of 11.1%, while blood group AB which was 5.62% of the study population had no case of prevalence. Asymptomatic malaria is prevalent in this community as reflected in this study; this could impact negatively on the health of the population. More efforts are needed to encourage public enlightenment on malaria diagnosis and treatment.
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    Knowledge, attitude and practice of malaria control among FUTO students
    (Medwin Publishers, 2020-04-23) Mgbemena, I. C.; Nzenwa, D. C.; Nwannah, A. L.
    This study to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of malaria control among students of Federal University of Technology of Owerri living in and outside the campus, was carried out between July and September 2018. A total of 160 students were randomly sampled with the use of structured questionnaires as well as giemsa stained thin and thick films to determine the prevalence of malaria. Among this number, 25% (40/160) of the students were infected with Plasmodium falciparium. The highest prevalence of 52% (13/25) was recorded among students living in the school hostel. Based on the questionnaire analysis, 96.25% of the students indicated mosquito bite as the cause of malaria, while 3.13% of them said malaria is caused by too much consumption of oil. There is a great disparity on the knowledge of the method of diagnosis with a total of 29.38% of the students preferring self-diagnosis, 17.5% stated microscopy, 11.88% RDT, while a greater percentage of them 41.25% do not have idea about any method of diagnosis. For control measures, 46.9% of the students do not practice any control measure against malaria. A whopping 56.9% of the students’ population takes antimalarial only when they are diagnosed. Some of the students do not fancy the relevance of going for laboratory diagnosis. Based on that, a total of 29.38% of the students rated that it is “barely important” going to laboratory, while 10.63% rated “not important”, although a good number (60%) believes on the importance of going for laboratory diagnosis by rating “very importance”. However, there seems to be a high level of knowledge about the cause of malaria among the students but the attendant knowledge of diagnosis and practice of control measures are lacking, as a result, this could impact negatively on the health of the students. Greater awareness is needed in order to improve knowledge on the importance of laboratory diagnosis and malaria control which can take care of their attitudes towards malaria. Attitude basically is always influenced by beliefs and existing bodies of knowledge.